SEO Starter Guide

Google has come up with a nice little PDF with a ton of SEO information. It is basically a starter guide for anyone interested in optimizing their site. Optimizing a site is not rocket science, but it does require a ton of work which is one of the services I provide.

Link: Google Blog Topic about the SEO Starter Guide

Link: My SEO Services - for info or prices please call 1.910.538.6731

Free SEO tool to estimate traffic

Check out www.statbrain.com, a free tool to estimate the amount of traffic a web site gets.

Statbrain estimates the number of visits that a website has based
on offsite factors like backlinks, Alexa Rank etc. Statbrain does
not have access to log files or any counter information.

The number of visits that Statbrain estimates gives you an idea of
the number of visitors that a website has, but not the exact
visitor number.

Free Web Page Analyzer

Here is a free Web page analyzer to test exactly how fast your 

page is at various speeds; this tip comes from Martin Preece.

Thank you Martin, it works very nicely.

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/index.html

Does ranking guarantee sales or success?

After being in the top 3 on Google for 'wilmington nc web design' for almost a year now, I had to ask myself this question. Google ranking is so highly stressed, but conversions is another issue. What happens if/when they get to your site? Do they leave after seeing the home page because they don't know where to go next? Are they making it to your contact page and then leaving? 

In my case, the ranking has definitely helped, but according to my stats, I have people coming to my site everyday, but that does not mean I am getting calls or emails everyday. What's the reason? I'll let you know when/if I find out - if you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to leave a comment here. 

Google prefers hyphens instead of underscores

Straight from the Google docs:

Consider using punctuation in your URLs. The URL http://www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful to us than http://www.example.com/greendress.html. We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs.

Alternatives to PPC (Pay Per Click)

Check out www.exactseek.com/featured_listings.html

They claim about 150 Million + Searches per month.

Benefits include:

- You Choose Your Keywords (you have to check availability with their tool)

- They cap the limit of keywords that can be bought

- No Bidding 

- No PPC

- No Click Fraud 

- Quick Inclusion (between 6 to 8 hours)

- World Wide Placement

- and some stats tracking is available.

Best of all is the low cost pricing:

$3 - $4 per Month 

Think like a search engine

A basic SEO strategy is to Think Like a Search Engine. Select specific keywords for your web pages and then focus on them in a very clear way.